


white nights, black lights

by hajimetooru_ittetsu



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Female Hange Zoë, Gen, Humour, Insomnia, Levi's insomnia, liberal use of sedatives, sedatives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:21:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27102622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hajimetooru_ittetsu/pseuds/hajimetooru_ittetsu
Summary: In which Levi suffers from insomnia, Hanji is a great scientist and friend, and Levi's new squad is traumatized.
Relationships: Levi & Erwin Smith & Hange Zoë, Levi & Hange Zoë
Comments: 5
Kudos: 112





	white nights, black lights

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! *waves* so this is basically a Levi insomnia fic. My headcanon is, since the Ackerman bloodline canonically has a bit of Titan blood in itbecause of the past Titan experiments, I kinda feel like their blood would be more resistant to substances like alcohol and drugs, hence this self-indulgent fic lol. Enjoy!

“Hanji!”

Hanji squeaks in surprise, almost dropping the beaker in her hand as the door to her lab slams open with a resounding bang. The light streaming in from the hallway illuminates the short figure of one of her closest friends standing in the doorway, his face hidden in the shadows. “Huh?! _Levi?_ What are you doing here?”

Levi steps into the laboratory and silently closes the door behind him. Now that his face is no longer shrouded in darkness, Hanji can see that Levi looks _horrible._ The bags under his eyes are even darker than usual, especially in contrast to his frighteningly pale skin. The lines on his face are even more pronounced, making him look almost his age for once. His clothes are rumpled, which, for Levi, is almost unheard of. His shoulders are hunched from exhaustion, making him look even smaller than he already is, and his lips are pressed into a thin line, his eyes bloodshot. 

In other words, he looks utterly _wrecked._

What the _hell_ is he even doing still up at this time? Hanji knows for a fact that Levi hadn’t slept at all for the past three days, buried in a giant stack of paperwork almost twice as tall as himself, so why on earth isn’t he finally going to bed now that he’s finished his work? Any sane person would—oh. _Ohh._ Shit, that’s right. His insomnia. 

Damn.

“Hanji, I need your help.” Levi’s voice is rough, his words lined with fatigue. “Do you have anything that will help me go to sleep?”

“Umm, well”—Hanji glances nervously around her lab, her eyes flicking over to her various stocks of sedatives—“you know, if you wanted sleep medication, you should’ve gone to the infir—”

“They don’t help,” Levi cuts in wearily. “I’ve tried.”

Hanji grimaces. “Well, I guess I can give you a light sedative.”

“No,” Levi snaps, teeth baring in a snarl. “I haven’t slept in three fucking days. My body’s about to give out but my brain won’t fucking shut down. I can’t go to sleep no matter what I fucking do and I’m losing my goddamn mind. Give me your strongest damn sedative.”

Oh dear. On a good day, Levi is irritable at best, but now, sleep-deprived and exhausted beyond belief, he’s a literal ticking time-bomb waiting to blow.

“Alright, alright, jeez calm down!” Hanji moves away from him to look through her stocks. Hmm, where is it? Where did she keep it? Not there, not there—ah, there it is. She triumphantly snatches the bottle and turns around to hand it to Levi. “Here. That should do the trick. Don’t use it too often though.”

“Thanks,” Levi says curtly, examining the label on the bottle. He turns to leave.

A thought suddenly occurs to Hanji. “Wait, Levi!”

“What?” She can tell that his patience—already thin on a regular basis, even more so now—is incredibly close to snapping. 

“I don’t think the sedative’s a good idea,” she says anyway. “You know how you literally can’t get drunk? I think whatever’s in your blood that prevents the protein receptor in your brain from being activated in response to your alcohol consumption will probably also keep the sedative from functioning properly.”

Levi bristles and grits his teeth. “Then do you have any other ideas?” he grinds out, seeming almost desperate.

Hanji deflates. “Unfortunately, no.”

Levi sighs, shoulders drooping. “Then I’ll use this,” he says, indicating the bottle. He turns and leaves the lab, leaving Hanji staring after him in slight concern.

Hanji sighs. This probably won’t end well.

* * *

  
“Good morning, Eren, Jean,” Hanji greets the two boys as she walks into the room. “Have either of you seen Levi? I can’t find him anywh—are you two alright?” she asks the moment she catches sight of their faces. 

Eren is as white as a ghost, as if he had just seen a Titan eat his mom again. Jean looks like he’d just pissed himself out of fear. 

“Well,” Hanji sighs, “I guess I’ve found him. So our little experiment didn’t work after all.”

“Experiment? Hanji-san, you mean Levi-heichou _agreed_ to be your test subject?” Eren asks incredulously, fingers turning white from gripping the handle of the broom he’s using too tightly. 

Hanji would be offended by the skepticism in his tone but she supposes that past unpleasant experiences of failed experiments kind of does justify his wary suspicion. “Well, not exactly. It’s more like he was desperate enough to try it out.”

“What do you mean? What did you _do_ to him?”

“To be fair, _he_ came to _me._ I didn’t do anything other than give him the strongest sedative I have.”

Eren and Jean gape at her. “He asked you for a sedative?” Jean asks in confusion. “What for?”

“He couldn’t go to sleep. Levi’s got the most severe case of insomnia I’ve ever seen,” Hanji bemoans, shaking her head. 

“The captain’s got insomnia?” Jean says, tone incredulous and maybe a little concerned.

“Yes. But well, apparently the sedative didn’t work, just like I predicted. You might want to tell the others to steer clear of him for now,” Hanji says, grimacing a little. “He’s running on very little sleep and is probably sporting a killer headache. He might actually kill someone if they so much as look at him the wrong way.”

“Uh, n-noted, Hanji-san,” Jean says, looking more nervous than she’s ever seen him before. Eren nods at her, looking tense.

“Now, can either of you point me to wherever he went?”

* * *

  
“So I take it that it didn’t work?” Hanji suddenly says from the open doorway.

It’s a testament to just how tired Levi is that he startles at her words, nearly dropping his cup of tea. She’s never, _ever_ been able to sneak up on him before. Somehow she can’t find it in herself to enjoy the moment.

Levi glances up at her tiredly, gaze taking a while to focus on her. She didn’t think it was possible for him to look even worse than he did yesterday, but she’s proven wrong as she observes his appearance. She also can’t help but notice that the hand holding the teacup is shaking almost imperceptibly. 

She frowns. Levi carefully lowers his cup down onto the table and watches her approach. 

“How’re you feeling?” Hanji asks, lifting her hands to his face, turning his head from side to side to check him over.

“Like shit,” Levi grunts. “Stop touching me with your filthy hands, shitty glasses,” he snaps irritably, swatting her hands away.

“Incredible,” Hanji breathes, backing away. “The strongest sedative known to mankind only succeeded in making you cranky and drowsy, but not enough to overcome your insomnia. This could be a medical breakthrough! You _have_ to let me take another sample of your blood!” If looks could kill, she would’ve dropped dead on the spot at the murderous glare Levi sent her way. “Imagine if—”

“Hanji.” Levi’s voice is dangerously calm and razor-sharp, a sure sign that he’s pissed. Hanji resists the urge to flinch at the ice in his tone. “If you don’t get out of my room in the next _three_ seconds, I will shove you so far down a Titan’s fucking throat it’ll _wish_ it had a digestive system to shit you out with.”

Wait. A Titan…

Hanji gasps in realization, her eyes widening to the size of saucers. “Titans! Of course! Why didn’t I think of this sooner?!” she shrieks, slamming her fists onto the table. She sprints towards the doorway, yelling over her shoulder, “I’ll have a solution ready by tomorrow night, Levi, just hang in there! This is going to work, I can feel it! Eren? Eren, where are you?”

The door slams shut behind her, leaving a nonplussed Levi staring at the closed door in annoyance, brows furrowed. He sighs tiredly and picks his teacup up by its top, lifting it to his mouth and relishing the warmth of the tea flowing down his throat. The tea soothes his frazzled nerves and calms his too-quick heartbeat. He’d be more concerned about that if he doesn’t feel like he’s about to collapse the moment he stands up from his seat. He stares almost detachedly down at the trembling fingers that are gripping the cup too tightly, sending ripples across the surface of the amber liquid. He heaves another sigh and puts the cup down onto the table.

He really hopes that whatever Hanji is cooking up will work, because he doesn't think his body can take this for much longer. Seriously, fuck this shit.

* * *

_  
Two days later  
_ Eren stumbles into the room looking like he’d just suffered a huge shock. 

“Eren!” Mikasa cries out, immediately leaping out of her seat. “Are you alright? Are you hurt? Did someone hurt you?”

“I think I’m hallucinating.”

“What?” Mikasa demands.

“Eren, what did you see?” asks Armin, staring at his best friend with worry.

Eren stares at everyone with a strange dazed expression on his face, as if he’d just witnessed a god-given miracle firsthand. “I think I just saw Levi-heichou smiling.”

Everyone blinks at him.

“Now you’ve _really_ lost it,” Connie says after a moment of silence.

“Eren! What did you eat during lunch? Did you eat something weird?” Mikasa asks, grabbing his face and looking him over with worry. “Maybe it was something in your drink?”

Jean stares at him like he’d just grown two heads. “You sure you didn’t hit your head? Maybe you have a concussion. You seem to be suffering from severe hallucinations.”

“Maybe you should go to the infirmary, Eren,” Armin says gently, speaking to him like he would to a spooked child. “You should take a rest.”

“You’re joking, right, Eren?” Sasha yelped. “The captain’s been in a horrible mood these past four days because of his insomnia, and he never smiles even when he’s in his usual mood. A smile from him’s probably as rare as Kobe beef*, and I’d _kill_ for some Kobe beef.”

Eren scratches the back of his head sheepishly. “Yeah, maybe I just imagined it. Sorry, everyone.”

There’s silence for a moment before Jean voices the question everyone’s dying to ask.

“What did it look like?”

* * *

  
Erwin glances up at the clock on the wall, feeling more than a little concerned. Mike is away on business inside Wall Sina, so only Hanji and Levi will be joining the meeting today. Hanji is characteristically late, but Levi is _uncharacteristically_ late. Levi prides himself on his punctuality: The latest he’s ever been to a meeting was five minutes before it even started. Is something amiss?

He checks the clock again. 11.01 a.m. Levi is officially one minute late.

Before he can even start to consider going up to Levi’s quarters to check up on him, the doors to his office swing open and in comes the man himself, sauntering into his office as if he isn’t one minute late to the meeting—an occurrence that is unheard of until today. Erwin opens his mouth to utter a greeting and promptly finds his words stuck in his throat at the sight of Levi. Something is different about him today. He closes his mouth and furrows his brows, trying to put his finger on the change in his most renowned soldier.

At first glance, nothing seems to be different. Levi always maintains a clean and tidy appearance with not a hair out of place. His uniform is perfectly starched and straightened as usual, boots shined almost to the point of reflection.

The first strange thing he notices is the lack of a scowl on Levi’s face. Sure, he isn’t exactly smiling, but it’s the closest thing to a smile he’s seen from Levi in a while. The second thing he notices is how fresh he appears. The dark circles under his eyes look less like black ink staining his skin and more like normal dark circles. His face is missing its usual borderline murderous expression and the tired look in his eyes is gone.

Levi wrinkles his brows in distaste at his scrutiny. “What? Do I have something on my face?” Even _that_ sounds less snappish than usual. Erwin blinks.

“Have you invested in a new brand of tea?” Erwin hazards a guess.

“I would,” Levi says blandly, “if we had the budget for it.”

...That’s fair.

“Perhaps a new shipment of bleach?”

Levi gives him a long bemused stare. “Not due until next month. What’s with the weird questions?”

The doors are shoved open before Erwin can answer. Hanji strides in, grinning broadly, six minutes late. Her gaze falls on Levi and her grin turns into a brilliant beam.

“Levi! Did it work?” she very nearly shrieks, rushing up to him and brimming with excitement.

It’s at this moment that Levi smiles. _Smiles. By the Walls,_ Erwin thinks, gaping, _am I hallucinating? What on earth is happening?_

“It worked,” Levi says, the small but warm smile still on his lips, “Thank you, Hanji.”

Hanji punches the air with her fist, yelling out an accomplished “Yes!” and cheering in triumph. “Okay, you have to tell me everything! Any aftereffects? How do you feel? How long did it work for? What time did you wake up? What time did you sleep?”

Levi, who normally would never humour Hanji’s rapidfire inquiries, answers all of her questions. “No aftereffects. None that I can feel, at least. I went to bed at ten. I woke up—”

“I feel the need to clarify,” Erwin cuts in weakly. “Ten as in an hour ago or _thirteen_ hours ago?”

Levi smirks— _smirks_ —at him. “Thirteen hours ago. I woke up”—he glances up at the clock on the wall— “thirty-seven minutes ago.”

Erwin blinks. “It’s 11 a.m.”

“I can see that,” Levi replies, a strange glint in his eye. If Erwin doesn’t know better, he’d say Levi is having fun messing with him. Hanji stifles a laugh.

“Alright, what’s going on?” Erwin finally asks.

Hanji smiles broadly. “I gave him some Titan tranquilizer that I’d just developed to help him sleep. I figured since all tranquilizers and sedatives known to mankind and usable by humans only succeeded in making him grumpier than usual, we’d need something a lot stronger.”

Levi frowns at the comment but doesn’t say anything. Erwin supposes that he _does_ seem to be in a really good mood. The fact that he hasn’t packed at least five different curses into any of his sentences so far is an indication of how well-rested and content he’s feeling right now. He almost looks _friendly._

But that’s not the most important point here.

“You gave him a _tranquilizer_ made for _Titans_ to help him _sleep?”_

“Yep!” Hanji exclaims happily, as if she doesn’t see anything wrong with the statement at all. “It worked, didn’t it?”

Erwin resists the urge to groan and rub his temples. He decides to concede this point and pursue another subject of interest. “How did you even develop a Titan tranquilizer?”

“Oh, Eren was very helpful, especially when he learned that the experiments were to help their dear captain with his insomnia,” Hanji says, grinning. “Good kids, the lot of them.”

“I see.”

“Are we going to start this meeting or not?” Levi cuts in quite abruptly. “It’s been eleven minutes since I’ve entered this room. I could’ve cleaned my entire bedroom during this conversation.”

Ah, there’s the testy Captain Levi he knows. Erwin suppresses a smile. “Of course, Captain. Let’s begin.”

**Author's Note:**

> *Kobe beef is one of the rarest and most expensive meat in the world.


End file.
